Isobel King and Sally Howes

Wall decals are a brilliant way to make a rented space your own. The same bathroom has been decorated with three different sets of decals from wall-pops.com.

Okay, so you can’t tear down walls, change offensive tiles, rip out the tasteless kitchen or have a cheeky skylight installed, but as a renter, you can always make the most of what you’ve got.

I once rented an enormous apartment in one of Sydney’s best suburbs for peanuts – on the basis I could change its buttercup yellow walls to a soothing off-white.

The landlord coughed up for the paint, we did the hard yards, and the place was transformed in under a week. It was unrecognisable from the lurid eyesore that had repelled prospective tenants at the inspections.

The lesson being: negotiation and a good relationship with your landlord can achieve more than your standard tenancy agreement might indicate.

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Standard no-nos

In NSW, things that tenants are generally not permitted to do without permission include:

- Attaching any fixture, or renovating, altering or adding to the premises- Changing locks, interfering with smoke alarms or security devices- Any decorating that involves painting, marking or defacing the premises- Fixing posters to wallsm

Window film comes in an enormous range of designs. There are simple non-coloured varieties in traditional and modern designs. Photos, Emma Jeffs design left; scandinaviandesigncenter.com, right.

The general rule of thumb is you need to leave the place as you found it, “acceptable” wear and tear aside. A few wall scuffs might pass, a big burn mark on the laminated kitchen benchtop won’t.

That said, a flexible landlord will often allow decorating with minimal impact, such as attaching hooks to hang pictures or using a low-adhesive tape or pins to hang posters. Blu Tack is out, as it leaves a sticky residue that’s a nightmare to remove.

Landlords may be open to genuine “improvements”, such as updating archaic appliances, light fittings and window treatments. Taps and showerheads are relatively easy and cheap changes, so could be on the cards, too. A good tenant is gold, and a smart landlord will generally go the extra mile to keep a reliable, long-term tenant happy.

Cover doorknobs for a new look. If they aren't your knobs try using a pretty ribbon to tie, instead of gluing the fabric on.

Discovering and addressing minor repairs straight away, before they become costly projects, benefits both parties. Don’t let a dripping tap or leaking pipe turn into a plumbing nightmare just because you’re reluctant to “bother” the landlord. He or she will be a lot more bothered by the fact you allowed a small repair to escalate into a major one.

What can tenants do?

Painting

Window film also comes in brightly coloured varieties that look like traditional leadlighting. Photos: Colorful Impressions (left ) and Artscape.

A new wall colour is the most obvious and radical decorating option. Keep it neutral, volunteer to do the labour yourself, and your landlord may well see the benefit in a low-cost makeover.

Maybe test the waters with suggesting a bedroom or hallway, and up the ante from there.

If the landlord is immovable and the paint is unbearable, try sugar soap. You may be able to clean the walls up a bit.

A fabric canopy may seem exotic, it might just be hiding an appalling ceiling (left). Damaged or ugly panels can be rescued with neatly applied fabric or paper.

Fabric

There are countless ways you can drape, tape, pin, scrunch, stretch and hang fabric. Throw great fabric over a nasty couch, add cushions to ugly furniture, stretch fabric over a large picture frame and lean it against the wall. The bigger the frame you make, the more wall you can hide.

Use low-adhesive tape to cover cupboard doors with fabric. Go with a floral drape for shabby chic or a more fitted metallic fabric for a modern look.

Tension poles can be used for just about any decorating purpose. This lamp's cord has been secured to the pole to create a suspended light fitting.

One clever online blogger, craftmel, suggested using double-sided fusible webbing, used by dressmakers, to iron fabric shapes onto walls. We're not sure about the ironing directly onto walls part, but the idea of cutting out shapes in decorative fabrics is a brilliant one. She cut out ornate picture frame shapes and added photos for a one-of-a-kind look.

It you're really clever you could create a canopy to cover ugly ceilings.

Don't create a fire hazard and make sure you can take things down easily for cleaning.

Perhaps not strong enough for a full-sized wardrobe, tension poles could easily hold up a child's clothes

Lighting

The way a room is lit can make a huge difference. While you certainly can’t do anything that requires an electrician, such as changing light fittings, you can choose soft-lighting bulbs, and add table and floorstanding lamps to offset brutal overhead lights.

Halogen floor lamps with dimmers, for example, can light up an entire room on full, yet dim down to a soft, ambient glow.

Curtains aren't just for windows.

Keep lighting low if your place is really objectionable, use focused lighting to draw attention to positive elements.

If you can't change really nasty light fittings, remove the bulbs and cover with a nice paper lantern or the like to disguise them. Removing the bulbs ensures the light can't go on and cause a fire hazard with any coverings.

If you have a really bad outlook try decorative window film. They come in a range of colours and designs and can distract from, blur out or completely block bad views.

Storage solutions with suction cups are great for renters.

Mobile storage

The likes of Ikea and Howards Storage World have amble ideas for portable storage you can take with you when you leave. If you’re short on bench space in the kitchen, consider an island bench; ditto bathroom storage.

If you need more wardrobe space, supplement it with a mobile hanging rack.

If you have a narrow gap beside the fridge, try a narrow bookshelf on wheels for an instant pull-out pantry. Be really careful it's stable and won't tip over.

Furniture

Clever furniture is a renters dream. Modular components that mix and match let you reconfigure them to suit changing locations are perfect.

Temporary and recycled. A clever gardening tip for renters from the amygoesgreen website.

Better still, if you can paint things like shelves and cabinets to match each new environment, you can transform your stuff and avoid the need to change a rented space.

Check "Ikea hack" websites for tips on transforming furniture into more architectural structures.

Tension rods (more correctly named compression poles/rods) are an amazing source of temporary home DIY options. They are most commonly used to hang shower curtains but get a long tough one that reaches the ceiling and you have a secure post for all sorts of storage.

Inside an Ikea "walk-in wardrobe".

Use small ones inside cupboards and drawers to divide up storage spaces. Hang curtains in windows, doorways or halls. Use under a sink to hang trigger bottles from, use to hang a lamp or even artwork. They can be very strong and secure as long as you don't overload them. Used correctly they won't damage walls or ceilings either.

Floors

Ugly carpets or noisy timber floors can be covered with rugs, and very cheaply these days.

Propping artworks against the wall is an alternative to attaching them.

You can buy floorcoverings large enough to cover an entire room for less than $100, although we couldn’t vouch for the quality.

Carpet offcuts can be trimmed to size and hemmed to make large, cheap rugs. Second-hand carpet is another great cheap option for "carpet rugs".

Invest a little more, and your rugs will travel a lot further – hopefully to your next pad.

Add castors to narrow bookcase and you have a pull-out pantry. Make sure it's stable and won't tip over though.

There are all sorts of temporary flooring options from "tiles" made of carpet, vinyl, rubber etc.

Try some funky synthetic turf or outdoor decking/tiling for the balcony.

A comfy pile of cushions or a beanbag on the floor can disguise all sorts of carpet woes.

There are plenty of ways to make temporary covers for dodgy surfaces with paper or fabric.

Walls

If you haven’t been able to talk your landlord into letting you attach anything to the walls, it doesn’t stop you from propping artworks against them. Just make sure they don't mark the walls where they touch.

Wallpaper comes in a huge range of patterns, and a cheap, decorative option is to attach wallpaper to a large piece of MDF and just prop it whatever: on a bookshelf, mantelpiece, on the floor or to partially cover a scuffed wall.

Staple fabric over a piece of corkboard and use it to pin up reminders, photos… treat it like a personalised artwork.

Panels of lattice are light and can be used plain as hanging storage space, or fabric-covered for a more designer look.

Lighting can make a huge difference to a room, focus on good points, leave the not so good ones in the dark..

If you have curtains hanging on a rod, buy an extra-long curtain rod and more fabric. You will cover more wall area and also make the window look larger.

Kitchen/Bathroom

These two rooms are usually the biggest problem areas. There are a lot of products on the market that will temporarily or permanently fix problems without a major renovation.

A great rug can make a room.

Like wall decals and peel off wallpaper, tiles and kitchen appliances can be covered with a range of temporary surfaces. There are decorative tile decals, non-slip bathtub decals, metal-look stick-on or magnetic products for dishwashers and fridges etc.

You could lean new stainless steel backsplash against ugly backsplash. You could line drawers and cupboards with decorative plastic/PVC coated paper.

Damaged bathroom tiles and tubs won't ever look great but a coat of specialist paint might make them easier to live with.

If the doors are really awful and you can't cover them with paper or fabric, if you are really careful, try unscrewing the hinges and storing the doors. Your stuff will be on display but that could be better than the ugly doors.

Make sure the doors go back on undamaged before you leave.

Gardens

Most tenancy agreements specify the tenant must “keep the grounds and garden tidy and free of rubbish”. But you can get a lot more creative than that.

In apartments, why not grow herbs in window tubs and pluck them on demand. In a backyard, the possibilities are endless.

Introduce a compost or worm farm, make your own gardening tubs from recycled timber and plant what you like, buy decorative pots and create outdoor rooms with furniture, lighting and comfy seating.

Investigate no-dig gardens if all you have is a cement slab. When you leave, just make sure it all goes with you.

General

Just make sure that whatever you do won't cause problems for example, disguising damp carpet with a rug on top could rot timber floorboards below. Without consent from your landlord, make sure whatever you've done is easy to remove or undo before you go. Any temporary bits a pieces must be stable and not be able to fall and cause damage to property or hurt people.

48 comments so far

A pretty good article but a few gripes. A bookcase turned towards the wall in a bedroom will NOT give you a walk in wardrobe. It will give you a bookcase turned towards the wall. And regarding lighting, very good suggestions but a better photo should have been selected. The one used doesn't illustrate the advice and is just plain disgusting.

Commenter

Fitzlou

Location

Fitzroy North

Date and time

July 11, 2012, 6:58PM

Thanks for the feedback, fair point about the lighting pic, its' gone. It's not as easy as you would think to find good pix though! As far as the walk-in idea goes, the lead pic in this story has me completely sold on the idea. http://news.domain.com.au/domain/diy/diy-renovation-budget-busters-20120625-20x6u.html

Commenter

Ed

Location

Date and time

July 12, 2012, 7:55AM

Some good tips, but given the state many rental properties are in, especially at the affordable end of the market I don't think landlords should be so precious about their properties. They need to become emotionally detached and treat it like the investment/business that it is, rather than their personal property whilst tenanted.

And in general many people don't have relationships with landlords, only the inflexible real estate agents who manage the property. Always seemed a bit odd to me that you you were not allowed to hang a picture on the wall, in a property that needed re-stumping and literally needed 10's thousands, if not $100k+ worth of renovation.

Commenter

TheHawk

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

July 12, 2012, 9:12AM

Agree. We have rented mainly in Europe , Middle East and Tampa Bay USA and without a shadow of doubt we have found the owners are the least professional and the Agents are the least educated. The Agents have no concept that when you are paying $35000 pa you want abit of service.

Commenter

Not very Professional

Location

Date and time

July 12, 2012, 9:50AM

You are so wrong! The agent is working for the landlord. They are not there to serve you - you are not paying for their service. It really doesn't matter how much you pay. However, what amazes me is how hopeless some agents are at serving the landlord properly by ensuring that good tenants stay put.

Commenter

Lucas

Location

Date and time

July 12, 2012, 3:01PM

TheHawk & Not very professional, you hit the nail on the head.

As a renter and a landlord, agents need to remember that a good tenant pays their salaries, not the landlord. The landlord has a duty to protect the interests of the Landlord but ultimately without a tenant there is no income.

The problem I have with agents are when they are too big they make government bureaucracies look like a walk in the park. I find that my relationship with the agent who manages my property (who is from a small agency) is such that they know what our goals are and we make a point of regularly visitng the house and talking directly to tenants. What this means is that our investment gets the attention it deserves to ensure it gets maximum returns while the tenants know they will have a home that is theirs and maintained to a high standard. It makes for a great long term relationship, and to date our house rents out at the top end of the market for its size and location, and the tenants are happy. This removes ANY excuse for failing to pay rent because the house is in disrepair. Sadly as a tenant my self I have sent more draft Notices to Remedy breach to have fundamental repairs carried out despite paying ontime and keeping the house as we received it. Perhaps with the economy changing and more people struggling to afford their own home, its time for tighter regulation over rentals to ensure tenants rights are upheld.

Commenter

paulie71

Location

ex-pat Brisbanite living in Melbourne

Date and time

July 13, 2012, 10:58PM

I agree, in my young hovel-dwelling years I had an agent going through the house counting the rips in the carpet in case we caused any more during our tenancy! Does it really matter once it gets to that stage? It's not like I'm naive enough to let them replace it out of my bond!

Commenter

DisDis

Location

Date and time

July 16, 2012, 7:32AM

I don't understand. A housing story has been up for over 2 hours and Allan from Prahran hasn't commented yet. Something must be wrong. Can someone check if he's OK?

Commenter

Bam Bam

Location

Bedrock

Date and time

July 12, 2012, 9:15AM

They are compression poles NOT 'tension poles'. Get your terminology correct otherwise it detracts from your credibility.